


Divine Tools

by Tridraconeus



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: AU: Clone, Gen, Iron Sand, Panic Attacks, Puppets, Shinki is Sasori, Violence, cloning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-03-08 20:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13466190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: When Sasori creates a clone to house his consciousness in the event of his eventual death, he gets a second lease on life that he didn't see coming.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I haven’t actually seen anything Boruto-related except for the movie and all my other info comes from the wiki. Updates on Tuesdays and/or whenever I want until completed.  
> Also, I kind of consider Edo Tensei to be a fugue state: Sasori kind of remembers what happened and what he did, but with heavy emphasis on the kind of.

Sasori, for how he was initially an unwilling recruit into Akatsuki’s ranks, found it easy enough to integrate. His partner wasn’t a dullard, the rest of them were reasonable, and—above all—he could still practice his art. Sometimes, Akatsuki did things right. Partnering Orochimaru and Sasori switched from _doing things right_ _to doing things wrong_ with alarming frequency despite how effective they acted as a team. They got on well enough. Sasori had his own reservations about Orochimaru’s tendencies to be unnecessarily forbearing, and his attempts at manipulating Sasori were laughable at best, but when they cooperated it truly seemed a fortuitous partnership.

One subject Sasori caught himself pondering—despite himself—was Orochimaru’s technique to transfer his consciousness to another self. Sasori had only managed through transferring bits of himself to another form. To be able to switch to another body, if not at will, was an enormous boon and one he was not above cooperating with a slimy, irritating snake man for.

It took some negotiating, some money exchanging hands, and a promise to teach Orochimaru a handful of his techniques in return, but in the end he learned how to create and grow a clone. Aside from complicated seals and expensive materials the technique itself was almost insultingly simple, merely requiring some reproductive cells (and that meant Sasori would have to acquire them, a fact he did not look forward to) and a bit of his own cells to guide the clone into the form he wanted. The chakra expenditure was massive, Orochimaru assured him. Kickstarting life was no small feat. Sasori cooly rebutted that _he_ was no small feat, to which Orochimaru had no suitable argument.

Once Orochimaru defected (from yet another organization) Sasori had plenty of time to himself to put his plan into glorious motion while the leadership scrambled to find him a suitable partner. The Land of Wind was his homeland. It felt strange and distant with how long he’d been away. The cactus and dunes were familiar, at least; the dry rivers carving out caves and canyons. It was in one of the large caves he set to work creating a Spartan workshop and laboratory. He called upon a puppet with Earth-natured chakra to make it larger, to smooth down the sharp edges, to hew shelves from the drab walls of the cave. He didn’t add anything necessary for sustaining life, not yet, because he didn’t need it. He knew he would—the clone would, rather. He would have to do so much to accommodate a return to humanity! But that all could wait until he was sure the clone was stable, Sasori told himself, and allowed himself to be satisfied with that.

It took him another month to collect all the materials he needed to create his clone. The end result looked like something out of a dream; pulsing seals surrounding a chemical tub, sealed tubes laying inside it, and the scrunched kanji of dates and times of the projected growth of his experiment. The initial creation of it was intoxicating, if strenuous. The journal he kept detailed the time he spent; an entire day crouched over the tub, channeling chakra into the tiny bundle of cells. An egg. Some of his cells, from his brain and heart. Some cells from the Third, for the small chance that they might impart his Kekkei Genaki, which Sasori had never tried before and was interested in seeing.

There was also the chance that so many different variables would invalidate his experiment entirely, but Sasori was nothing if not confident. Time would tell whether his confidence proved a setback, if not a downfall. He could always make another clone. This clone would serve as his body if he ever died, after all; consciousness switching from death to life as it had when he first created his puppet body. It was an interesting juxtaposition, he supposed, and wrote down as much in his journal.

_It interests me that I am essentially recreating my initial conversion to a puppet body in reverse. The only element that might prove troublesome is that my Heart, my Core, will no longer be my only weak point. If I die and when I wake up in my new body, the first order of business will need to be gathering the necessary materials to convert myself into a puppet again._

Writing it down should have taken longer; but he was inspired, and as any inspired artist found the words flowing from his pen so he could go back to his creation. The journal served twofold purpose. It kept him focused, allowed him to write down the events of the day and track the development of his clone. It also allowed him to create some material for himself to read if the event arose that his clone would be necessary. Reading about his achievements would surely serve to bolster himself after death.

It was after three months he figured out that he could speed up the process, then leave the clone safely in stasis whenever Akatsuki called him back. That was a proud day. He saw the child grow a year in a day; it screamed out uselessly under the chemicals he’d submerged it in. With something near regret, he slowed the development as to not kill it by mistake and rethreaded a breathing tube into it where it had been torn out.  

It was so _frail_. Some days it seemed as if he could kill it with an askance glance. That day, watching it breathe, Sasori did his best not to reflect on the unfortunate circumstance of humanity and how terrible it would certainly feel to return to it. Perhaps he should put an end to this entire project and attempt to create a puppet that he could wake up in, instead.

That night, he returned to his journal.

_The clone has given me more advancements than it has setbacks, but I still believe that if I were able to safely speed up growth past what I have already achieved, I might be able to convert a majority of the body into a puppet and leave only the head and chest alive. It would shorten the time necessary to complete the transition into a fully puppet body._

He spent the majority of the night sketching up possibilities, even new additions he hadn’t implemented into his own body. His idea wouldn’t work. Planning was a part of creation, he knew, but it still was unpleasant to see what he initially thought would be a glorious plan fall unsatisfyingly flat. The next night, he returned to his journal again.

_A pitiful idea. Outfitting the clone only partially with puppet limbs that would quickly be outgrown is a mistake. Instead, I will strengthen chakra pathways to make the inevitable transition as smooth as possible. In addition, I will stock the cave with the necessary materials to sustain life for as long as it should take for me to become familiar with the clone’s body._

Over the course of a month he steadily grew the clone until it was four years old. It inherited far more of the Third’s looks than Sasori was necessarily happy with—a thatch of floppy brown hair, long and delicate limbs. He certainly wouldn’t be short like Sasori was. He would have preferred it to look like himself; but perhaps too close of a resemblance would be dangerous. He consoled himself with that, and the sandy brown eyes he saw when the clone opened its eyes.

 Fortunately, that inheritance also factored in to the clone’s chakra. Pleased with that at least, Sasori made sure to scrutinize the growing pathways every day. He fed it with his own, making sure the clone’s pathways ran strongly. He briefly thought of it as nurturing a living thing; that did not sit well. It prickled uncomfortably. Instead, he reminded himself that this clone was to be nothing more than a tool for him. Thinking of it as anything except such was a mistake.

When the clone was five, he set about writing a separate journal detailing how to keep himself alive. He fetched food and water and stowed them into sealed chests to keep them safe and fresh.

When the child was six, he received a summons from Akatsuki. He placed the child in stasis; submerged in the chemical vat, eyes closed and peaceful. Sasori already felt the connection to it. If his Core were destroyed, he would most certainly wake choking in the vat.

He wasn’t looking forward to it. It was merely insurance.

As he sealed the entrance to the cave and left it looking like nothing more than a seamless canyon wall, he realized that he’d never actually given the clone a name. If he were to come back, he certainly wouldn’t want to be recognized. His name was distinctive. He needed to choose something else before he forgot.

As he finished sealing the cave and setting traps for the entrepreneurial chakra sensor, he decided to name the child Shinki.

 


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasori wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's GOOOOOOO.

 Sasori woke to a riot of sensation. His vision swam; his lungs burned; his throat felt torn and raw. His eyes stung. Thrashing, frail and human limbs flailing against the prison of the vat, he kicked and squirmed until his knees collided with the bottom. He reared his head above the fluid, gasping for breath—floppy thatch of brown hair falling into his eyes and setting off a new wave of stinging agony-- and a new sort of terrible sensation gripped from the inside and _tugged_ : he hadn’t felt it (anything) in so long that he couldn’t place it until he’d instinctually hauled himself half-over the lip of the vat and lurched forward, hanging like a rug left out to dry His fingertips trembled against the ground. Nausea continued to build from the taste, from the stench, and he fought back the urge to vomit only as long as it took for him to draw a shaking, feeble breath of sharp and acrid air. His throat constricted painfully; there was nothing for him to throw up. His throat seized at nothing. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and he made pathetic _hah, hah_ noises, harsh and throaty gasps for stale air. The fluid’s changed from clear to a strange, shimmering blue. He saw it dripping down his arms, hooked over the edge of the vat and dangling limply. A puppet, strings cut. Sasori nearly laughed.

It hurt too much.

He sat in the tepid, stinging fluid for a moment more before rising to his feet. The fluid came up to his knees and everything above that tingled in the cool air. His knees already ached. They’d bruise, he knew as much. These injuries wouldn’t be as easy as sanding down and varnishing over. Again, the unpleasantness of a human body washed over him in tandem with the sluggish ripples around his legs. Sasori swung one leg over the tub, then another, leaving puddles on the stony ground. He briefly regretted not putting down towels or rugs. On a puppet, he didn’t even feel it. The smooth, uncalloused soles of the clone complained at the sharp pebbles he’d allowed to remain on the ground during the hollowing out of his workshop. Sasori grumbled briefly. His voice surprised him with how hoarse—how high—it was. He didn’t sound much like himself at all!

That, he reminded himself, was the point.

Success had never felt so bitter before.

He tried to take a step. He could hear blood rushing through his ears, his head. He felt it pulsing in his chest. It was an ever-present light hum, the kind of high-altitude clacking he’d get in the metal joints whenever Deidara flew too high. It was all too much. Tears gathered again, twice in less than an hour, as the buzzing in his body mounted and the stress of being alive so soon after being dead. His eyes stung with a new sort of pain as the tears helped to flush out the chemical vat mixture. He could still hear his pulse, hear it and feel it. His body prickled. The air touched his bare skin, too cold despite Sasori theoretically knowing that it was slightly under room temperature, and his skin pebbled at the sensation. He felt that too. It was too much.

With the advantage of a slightly-older brain, Sasori now understood why newborns cried so much. With no other recourse from the relentless wash of unwanted, human sensation, he sank to the ground and bawled.

Sasori normally wouldn’t allow himself such moping. It felt fitting somehow, so he permitted a brief stint of self-pity for his new, terrible, frail, squishy, fragile, unpleasant _, young_ body. He’d only inhabited it for—an hour at most, perhaps—and a deep-seated, uncomfortable creeping sort of disgust built itself up from his still-tingling ankles and calves to settle heavily, almost tauntingly in his chest, inside and opposite of the cool metal of the vat.

_See?_ It seemed to say. _This is what you are now. You should have made the child into a puppet while you had the chance._

As easy as this slip into misery may have seemed, Sasori was nothing if not a master over both his creations and himself. Currently, he was both. Steel covered the disgust, if not replaced it, and he stood with as much dignity as he could muster. His legs still shook. He was naked, the air stinging his skin belatedly informed him, and still dripping the fluid in iridescent droplets onto the ground. He hadn’t been uselessly weeping against the same vat that he’d crawled from for long, then.

A snappish order, a “you had better _work_ ,” is directed to his trembling legs. They granted enough cooperation to carry him across the workshop in unsteady, zig-zagging motions. Fortunately he didn’t slip on his own wet. Sasori wasn’t sure what he would do then, if not declare this entire venture an incalculable failure and lay on the ground for a little while longer to meditate exactly why it was such. His knees twinged as he reaches the workbench. Hands, long-fingered, clasped at the wood and the absence of wooden joints shocked Sasori in tandem with the shock of actually feeling the grains of the wood.

If he is to live within this riot of sensation again, he’ll have to learn to deal with it. He briefly wished he’d have been considerate enough of himself to leave a pair of _gloves_.

Something to worry about later, he decided with a gusty sigh, and turned instead to his second journal that detailed the minutiae of keeping himself alive in this terrible new body.  Movement wasn’t as simple as commanding chakra strings; he had to engage his muscles, force his bones to move, brace himself for impact with the ground against his feet. His balance balefully returned to him as he paced in a circle, journal up to his nose. Eating was the first directive, with helpful instructions on how to open up the sealed chests.

An hour later Sasori sat down at the table (in pants! They fit, too, which made him immeasurably happy) with a plateful of the supplies he’d stuffed into the chest. This new body not only flooded him with unpleasant sensation but unpleasant emotion, as well. Such joy at something as simple as being able to feed himself—or perhaps feeding himself again after so long—was entirely unacceptable if he wanted to speed this whole _human process_ along. He’d need to press it down.

A job for another day. Sasori huffed, arranged himself on the wooden chair with his legs tucked up cross-legged at the edge of it, and ate as quickly as he could. He still had more directions in his journal, after all.

Despite his resolution to eat quickly he still slowed down several times to savor the taste. It went a long way to blanket the awful aftertaste of the vat. The sensation of a full belly was one of the first _not_ -unpleasant feelings his new body felt. Sasori might have even meditated over the texture of a broccoli, scraping his tongue against the tiny florets and cataloguing how even the same sensation could feel so different. He’d known all of this long ago. It was remembering, he told himself.

After he finished his food he measured out a cup of water and drank it all, even though he wasn’t very thirsty. He already didn’t trust the messages his new body was sending him, and didn’t want to die from something as silly as dehydration just because he wasn’t disciplined enough to take care of himself properly. The water tasted flat and unpleasant. If he were thirsty, perhaps it would taste better. Still, Sasori still remembered how precious water was in Suna and so didn’t, and _wouldn’t_ , waste any—even when he realized, with dismay, that the chemical stench of the vat still clung to him and he would have to clean himself somehow, and that he hadn’t taken that into account when gathering up supplies for himself.

How troublesome.

He had, however, set up a mattress in the very far corner with a pillow and a blanket. The stress of waking up, and all that had come after, lapped at the edges of Sasori’s consciousness. It wouldn’t do to push this new body too far. That would just be humiliating. Sasori has had enough humiliation for one day—and one lifetime.

Sasori knew his limits. He wrapped himself in the blanket, and decided that he would test his skills after he slept. He feared dreams would come to him; he hadn’t actually slept in years, hadn’t required it. What would he dream, he wondered. Would it be his death? Would it be a nightmare?

It would be nothing. Sasori willed dreams away, curled his knees in as if dreams weren’t things that came from within, as if it would shield him. His knees still ached from being bashed against the vat.

When he finally drifted off to sleep, he did not dream; at the least, he did not remember. Sasori wasn’t entirely sure which option he would be more frustrated with. Dreaming, and having those useless nighttime memories following him into the day? Dreaming, and not remembering it at all, having parts of him slip away into the distant recesses of his clone’s mind?

He woke up hungry again. Shuffling to the chests with the blanket wrapped around himself like a cape, he unsealed them and drew out a piece of fruit for himself. Whatever went in, however, would come out at some point. He was not looking forward to that, not in the slightest. When he’d finished eating he threw the trash in the bag he’d set out exactly for that purpose and turned, instead, to the box underneath his workbench.

This was what he’d been _waiting_ for. He clapped his hands together, twice, lightly, balled them into fists in excitement.  Inside the box were puppets. No human puppets, unfortunately; those were sealed up in scrolls elsewhere, and he couldn’t be sure they weren’t ransacked by now. A shame.

He tugged out a puppet roughly the length of his forearm. He’d made it specially, carved it from pieces of a single branch, and while his clone grew and matured in the vat he painted it in reds and whites. It was simple enough and not very articulated, the perfect practice in case his skills had somehow decayed. He didn’t suspect as much, but it would save him yet another humiliation. He set it on top of the workbench and pulled a stool up, stepping up onto it so he could properly overlook the surface.

Chakra threads came to him as easily as breathing. Sasori, when he was human before, felt the purest sort of joy channeling his chakra into puppets. He couldn’t feel it as a puppet, couldn’t feel anything. It was nice to feel again. He connected the threads to the puppet’s hands and feet. At his bidding, it rolled onto its side; a hand, positioning itself on the bench, a knee pulling up under itself. The other leg pulled up, knee to chest, and the other hand rested on it. The puppet stood in a fluid motion and he had it straighten up. On a whim, he made it stretch—head tipped back and arms extending out, first at the sternum and then straightening at the elbows. He raised it onto the blocks he’d created for toes. The puppet dropped back down onto its feet and Sasori pursed his lips, cast his eyes around the workbench to see what else he could have the puppet do.

He’d made a partner for it, identical except for the colors. As he pulled it from the box, he noted with satisfaction how the black and blue designs had stayed clean and not chipped. There were tiny weapons, too, two katana and some kunai that looked more like toothpicks. He took those next and stared at his puppets again.

First, he would have to make sure he could still control two puppets at once. Then he could play with them. Instead of repeating the motions of the red one he simply tugged the blue one to its feet. His skills hadn’t degraded, Sasori confirmed. The movement came easily, the chakra snappy where it needed to be and fluid elsewhere.

Too easy. Impatiently, he directed the blue puppet closer to the red one. Together, they bent down to wrap spindly fingers around the hilts of the blades. Blue and red, respectively. Sasori did not regret color-coding the equipment for his puppets. He spent a couple minutes pitting them against each other. It lacked the excitement of a real fight, of course, but the puppets were sturdy and it was a bright spot of entertainment that did much to relieve him of the stress that had hovered over him like a cloud. He made them move first like fighters, then like dancers. Then, like some strange combination of both, with scything attacks and graceful dodges. The puppets finally came to a stop and he had them sit cross-legged. When he severed the chakra strings they collapsed onto each other and the katana fell to the workbench with a light wooden clatter.

He gathered them up and tucked them back in the box, curiosity sated for now. He looked back into his journal to find out what he’d set up for himself to do next—and with pleasant surprise, discovered that it was to determine whether he was able to access the Third’s kekkei genkai. From under the workbench, he again drew from the box. It was a small pouch, heavy, of iron ground into tiny grains. There was another pouch of gold dust. It would be useful to determine if he could control one, both, or none.

Sasori was familiar with how to call upon it with his puppet. He wasn’t familiar with how to call upon it now that it was—perhaps—inherent within him. He began experimentally, just thinking about it. He thought of the iron, cool against his skin. Heavy. Trickling up his arms like rainwater in reverse, settling around his shoulders like a shroud. Tickling his neck, rippling against his skin with every breath, as if it were breathing with him.

The dust moved. Sasori smiled, triumphant. It took a little more than thinking, and it wasn’t like the chakra strings he was familiar with; more of a blanket encapsulating the sand and directing it. When he had his puppet body moving it with chakra strings became easy, almost unconscious as he became familiar with the discipline and technique. He thought of it as his new breathing before disallowing himself of that notion, but the theory behind it was similar. Hopefully he would be able to replicate that ease with the sand. He pulled it across the air and allowed it to lay across his hand. It writhed like a snake and twirled, twisted, wrapped up his arm, arced over his shoulders—quickly enough that he felt each individual grain against his skin—and slithered down his other arm. He sent it back into the pouch.

He turned to the gold dust. That was harder, being heavier, but he successfully commanded the grains into the air with a concentrated effort. His hands were shaking, he noticed almost with a start, held out in front of him as if to hold the gold within them. He lowered the dust into his hands. It clung, his hands slightly sweaty from the effort. Sasori huffed out a laugh.

He directed the gold dust back to its pouch and then knelt to tug out the first box, dragging it against the ground with his undeveloped, childish arms and setting it to the side. Behind it was a second box; this one was entirely full to the brim with ground-up iron dust. It was there for whenever he needed it.

The practice with his new-old skills had done an admirable job of wearing him down, so Sasori made sure everything was put away into its place and crawled back into the blankets to sleep again.

He dreamed.

The iron crawled up his arms. It held him, cool and heavy, encircling him up to his throat. He couldn’t do anything against it, even as he frantically tried to command it with chakra that didn’t listen to him either. He turned his head—the Third, his puppet, slumped listlessly against the wall.

The eyes followed him.

Sasori woke panting, and turned onto his side. He glanced at the wall just to make sure. He held the blanket closer around him; a nightmare. He’d had a _nightmare_.

How terrible.

Sasori kept the blanket wrapped around him and simply laid on the mattress until his breathing returned to normal and his heartbeat calmed to a steady beat in his chest.

He stayed in the cave for a week alternately honing his skills and learning how to function as a living creature again. It was horrible. Something else that he never expected to have returned was that he was going stir-crazy. He wanted to go out, stretch his legs. Run. Do _something_. The Iron Sand seemed too big for the small cave as he wove it into different shapes, into different angles, forming it into weapons and then into stepstools for his newly small body to clamber into the shelves.

He made a puppet. He got bored quickly, as it was only wood and most of his advanced supplies were out. He repainted Red and Blue whenever they scuffed each other or the Iron Sand stripped the paint away. He could still control up to ten puppets, and with practice could work the puppets and the sand in tandem.

His food supplies were running out. He didn’t think he’d ever get sick of jerky, but he was, and it stuck in his throat like sand to the point that he nearly considered checking to see if the Iron Sand had found its way into the meat.

It all drove him to an unpleasant, inevitable conclusion: it was time to face the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment, kudos, or subscribe if you liked it! I need validation to live


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School is kicking me to Mars so I might have to delay posting the final chapter by a week. Hopefully that won't happen!

It took Sasori upwards of an hour to assemble a suitable pack. How much food would he need? Suna was nearly a kilometer away, which was a respectable distance for any trained shinobi in Suna’s heat. For a (fairly) untrained child, it was a death sentence. Sasori finally decided on a liter of water, tucked into the very bottom of the pack, and the remainder of the jerky on top of it. He had a good couple yards of rope and at least five carabiners. Those went into the pack as well. He finally took a map, a compass laying on top of it, and reoriented himself with the path he would need to take.

Suna was designed so that a wanderer who managed to survive the blistering heat and inhospitable dunes would find it eventually—it laid at the end of the lines of canyons, dry gulches that Sasori remembered trundling through with the body of the Third on his shoulders. Now he was going to return carrying bits of the Third within him. Sasori, for how much he detested irony, found a bitter pleasure in that.

The seal at the mouth of the cave hadn’t been undone for literal years. Sasori put his hand against the sandstone, felt it and determined that it was either night or early morning from the radiating coolness.

“I’m ready.”

He didn’t know why he’d said that. He didn’t need to. It was a pointless, self-soothing gesture. He was acting like a child.

His tiny, frail hand pressed against the sandstone reminded him that he _was_ , and also reminded him that it was a bid to win another life for himself. If he went to Suna and introduced himself as Sasori he’d be considered crazy at best and a wild danger at worst. He’d already given the child a name, and determined to himself that he would adopt it as his own. He leaned forward and sighed, rested his head against the sandstone. His thumb brushed at his hair. He pressed his nail to his forehead.

“Shinki.”

It sounded awkward. It _didn’t_ sound like him.

“My name is Shinki.”

It didn’t help. The name was too harsh on his tongue, alien and sharp. Sasori curled his lip. He pressed his hand against the stone. The slight texture scraped against the pads of his fingers.

“My name is Shinki.”

He bumped his head against the sandstone. It did nothing to get his head in order, as he hoped it would. He huffed. Clearly, he wouldn’t just have to wear the name like a mask. He would need to allow himself to accept it as _his name_ , just as easily as he’d accepted _Sasori_. He rolled it around in his head again, over and over until it didn’t sound like a word at all. He stared at the sandstone. The seal pulsed against his palm.

“My name is Shinki.”

He scowled. It would fit with time, like new sandals. Sasori—Shinki—only hoped that he would avoid any blisters.

He returned to his pack and slung it over his shoulders, shifted around until the straps fell comfortably, and then turned to the box under the workbench. He raised his arms, abrupt, and commanded the entire compacted being of sand to rise. It surged from the box like a wave and wrapped around him, swamping the ground, rushing over his feet and weaving up his body. He wrapped it around himself like a cloak. He felt the weight in an abstract sort of way in that it pressed against him, shifted and brushed, but the weight was entirely carried by his chakra.

He gave an experimental spin. The sand followed him and swished around his ankles, chakra approximating the movement of cloth. It must have been a childish urge. Shinki decided to allow it, if only that some childish actions would cement his cover.

He scanned the workshop one more time. Red and Blue were left on their backs on the workbench; with an easy flick of chakra, the shifted to sit against each other. He wasn’t going to be gone forever. He just needed to mature a little more before he could convert himself into a puppet again. With that thought, Shinki twisted on his heel and made the movements to unseal the cave. The chunk of rock serving as a false entrance receded into the ground, allowing the chill night air to flood in and Shinki to emerge.  Now properly outside, the wildly spinning compass stabilized. He looked at it briefly to confirm his suspicions, and then tucked the tool into his pocket. Resealing the cave was the work of a moment; the husk of a dead scorpion near it served as an innocuous marker, common in the desert but with a specific meaning in this place.

Shinki took a deep breath in an attempt to center himself. The air stung his nose and throat. The endless desert stretched out in front of him. He was glad for sandals. Right now, the sandstone was painfully cold; later in the day it would heat up enough to burn skin. Shinki had certainly seen enough of that when he was a child.

When he was a child before.

The distinction stung. He’d get used to it—he had to.

With a lighter sigh, Shinki set off into the sands. His Iron Sand held him comfortingly, mixed with the gold dust for ease of carry. He’d experimented with allowing the gold dust into his hair; it looked silly. His hair sparkled. Sparkled! Nobody would even begin to take him seriously then, not when it looked like he had an entire Academy class’ worth of glitter in his drab brown hair.

The first hour of walking wasn’t an issue. The sun was coming up, though, and soon enough the heat pricked at him through the cloak of Iron Sand.

Shinki realized with something nearing despair that if he wanted to keep the cloak on, he would risk burns. It was with resigned defeat he instead positioned the sand in a cloud above his head, so it could do something to shade him from the sun. In that way he walked quite comfortably for a few hours. Time started to slip as the sun crawled higher in the sky; the sand drooped, his chakra used to carrying a large burden but his body still juvenile and weak. Around midday, he stepped too heavily and sunk into a dune up to his knees. The sand stung and hugged. He commanded his own sand down, less scared than he was inconvenienced, and pulled himself out of the dune. This deep into the desert, the sand wasn’t golden; it was pale yellow, a straw-colored wasteland speckled by brush and cacti.

He took a break with his back against a spindly, dead tree. It didn’t provide much shade; but his sand nested on the branches like a blanket of crows, creating a shallow pocket of shade for him to rest in. He almost wished for Red and Blue, left behind in the workshop to wait for him. Not because he wanted the companionship-- he had learned long ago before his first death that seeking the companionship of puppets was folly. Not because of loneliness, no. Because he was _bored_.

He ate some food that seemed to stick to his throat. Drank half the water, surprising himself with how thirsty he’d become without even noticing it. Shinki yawned, newly tired, and came dangerously close to allowing himself to doze off against the tree before shaking himself roughly back to alertness. He, as well as every other Suna-nin, knew the dangers of heatstroke and the mistake of falling asleep under the burning sun. With a deep sigh, he stood and stretched. The sun beat balefully down. He still felt like there was sand in his sandals—he kicked his feet idly a few times to free any grains that may still be stuck there.

As Shinki set off in the direction of Suna again, he noticed how his shirt stuck to his back. He was sweaty. _Gross_. Despite himself, he growled and shook his shoulders as if it might dislodge the fabric. It didn’t, and the pack bounced around and made his shoulders ache from the pressure. He admitted defeat—to his _own body_ , at that—and continued on.

He didn’t even know how long he’d been dead before waking up in the clone’s body. He didn’t know what year it was, or how Suna had changed, or how relations had changed—perhaps the Nations had gotten their collective shit together and finally united for good and not just when there was a colossal threat.

Shinki, for all his cynicism, suspected that it might be the truth. A shame. He was quite looking forward to another war.

It was almost night by the time he saw the enormous walls. If he were any weaker he might have cried with joy. No doubt someone had seen him coming, though, if Suna had any watchmen worth a damn. Considering that his explosive former partner managed to snatch their Kazekage, Shinki drily figured that they had better. So many things were slipping from his head like sand from a fist-- Shinki barely remembered the journey back to the cave where they’d extracted Shukaku. He remembered nearly killing the child.

He remembered the child, grown into a man despite Shinki’s best efforts, controlling his old puppet body. He was past being angry over it. Kankurō had shown that he deserved it. A sinking feeling took root in his chest when he remembered that Kankurō also had his Mother and Father puppets, and likely a good majority of the others. Shinki sighed out loud. He swept the curtain of Iron Sand down and wrapped it around himself, once more a protective cloak.

Strangely, he faced no opposition. Perhaps the sentries were lazy and tired in the heat. Perhaps Shinki was the recipient of a timely stroke of luck.

Perhaps they were lying in wait.

Shinki pressed the thoughts to the back of his head and pushed on. Inside the walls, the village pathways were shaded by the buildings, adobe and sandstone, but still most people were indoors. Shinki couldn’t bring himself to blame them. He used to walk through the world uncaring as to the weather, except for rain, but now the heat weighed him down even though he was now in the shade. Suna had changed from when he was a child; he supposed both Deidara and the ongoing march of time had something to do about that. Still, he found his way around easily enough. Suna was laid out like a wheel with the Kazekage’s tower in the center and the rest of the village radiating out around it. It was different from Konoha, built in grids. It was different from Kiri, built around streams. It was different from Iwa and Kumo, rising up irregularly and cut from the mountain ranges themselves. Shinki found himself liking Konoha for the organization, and Kiri for the lively black market. He liked Iwa and Kumo for the natural security.

Suna, however, was his home. It was a strange thought, especially since he had willingly abandoned it and come back only to kidnap and subsequently kill its Kazekage.

Two of them, actually.

It was the first one, the Third, that he currently had quite the uncanny resemblance to. He walked through the streets—the cloak dragged against the ground. It hummed like a hive of angry bees. He had to be attracting some sort of attention.

 _Good_ , he thought, tempered with exhaustion but no less savage.

It was only when he noticed how aimless his wandering was that he realized he didn’t actually know where he was going. He was inside Suna. His plans, surprisingly, stopped there.

Shinki decided to go where all lost children eventually ended up.

The old orphanage was still standing, though he could see recent patchwork repair jobs of adobe and stucco. Shinki walked inside and politely sat down on one of the low wooden benches. He remembers when the orphanage was full to bursting; so many families were wiped out in the war (the war when he was a child, though now he was a child again and mildly hoping for another war) that their children had nowhere to go. Most of them became Suna’s staunches defenders, ruthless and hawkish shinobi. Shinki could have admired some of them.

Now, though, the orphanage was mostly empty. He’d never been inside of it. He’d had Chiyo, after his parents went away. He didn’t know who ran it. Didn’t know if the person had changed.

Suna had gone on without him. It would further his cover, of course, that it was unfamiliar. It still stung.

He didn’t know how long he sat there on the bench. Certainly long enough for the sun to sink below the horizon, long enough that he heard chatter from the streets as people emerged to enjoy the muted heat before it sank into evening chill. Melancholy crept up on him with the fear that the building was abandoned, despite the recent repairs. If he were a puppet, he could dispel the irrational fear with nothing more than the confirmation that it _was_ an irrational fear. The childish wiles of his new body insisted that there was something in it worth entertaining. Instead of arguing with himself, Shinki crossed his arms, drew his legs up onto the bench and crossed them, and tugged the cloak of Iron Sand closer around himself with a flick of chakra. He felt very _petulant_ like this. It was almost embarrassing.

Not long after he allowed himself to lean back into the folds of his Iron Sand and the support it provided, a woman walked through the door with her arms entirely piled with grocery bags. Past the fabric bags he could see sandy brown hair halfway covered by a light blue wrap, a canvas-brown cape coat over a long black dress. Her ankles and her feet were wrapped in bandages to guard against sand and irritants that her sandals couldn’t keep out. She looked like any citizen of Suna, and that itself nearly made his heart ache. Shinki huffed.

To his surprise, she turned to him; his musings weren’t only his anymore, she could _hear_ him. Even though her face was blocked by the bags Shinki still felt notably scrutinized, and so decided that she must be the one who ran the orphanage.

“Oh! Were you waiting for me? How kind of you. Would you mind carrying these to the kitchen, dear?”

That, he didn’t quite know how to respond to. She thrust out a bag filled with leafy green things at him and, while thankfully muscle memory didn’t take over and eradicate the threat, he still reached his arms out and took it. It settled heavily in his arms. Judging by the wine-red peeking through the greens of vegetables and the round weight pressing into his ribs, he assumed that this bag also held pomegranates. He didn’t know why he found it necessary to determine as such.

In the time he spent deliberating over the contents of the bag, he didn’t notice that the woman was still staring at him.

At the _sand_ , rising black and baleful at his back.

She dropped the bags, silently, and Shinki was forced to act. The sand swept forward in a wave and caught the fabric bundles before they hit the ground. Normally, he wouldn’t care. This new body was always invalidating his comfortable normal, and now he was doing the same with his own actions.

Shinki rationalized it into not wasting food. In Suna, one couldn’t afford to, and he’d hate to be the reason that food was wasted. Even if the awe was appreciated. The woman was still staring at him, and everything about her seemed to come from the desert; skin, pale like bleached bone. Eyes, dark like pebbles in a drought-stricken riverbed. He searched for something to say to her, something that wasn’t unkind or his kneejerk caustic.

“I don’t know where the kitchen is,” is what he settled on, and strongly felt the urge to kick himself immediately after.

To her credit she recovered quickly enough from the shock of a strange child with strange (but _familiar,_ for anyone in Suna) abilities. Those who cared for children gained that uncanny skill, right alongside wrangling dozens of children with weapons they didn’t know how to use and jutsu they didn’t know how to control.

He raised the sand holding the bags to her, offering them back. She smiled at him. He understood why she worked with children; he’d only ever seen a smile that kind few times before. He didn’t notice he was smiling back until his cheeks twinged. With a smooth movement, she plucked three of the bags from the sand, looping them down one arm. She picked the other two up with the other. Shinki pulled the sand back to him. Instead of rejoining the mass of his cloak, it puddled around his feet. He was unsure of where to put it. That was novelty. In the past, he would put it where he wanted without much care as to who it affected. He didn’t want to inconvenience her, though.

 _Childish wiles_ , he chanted to himself.

“Follow me, dear. What’s your name?”

She moved slowly to allow him the chance to catch up to her and walk by her side.

“My name is Shinki.”

Too solemn for a child, perhaps, but Shinki was familiar with the children that war produced and so accepted the solemnity. Her, too. She simply nodded.

“My name is Yamazaki Koharu. I’ve lived in Suna my whole life. How about you?”

Together, they put away the groceries in the kitchen. He realized that her manner and actions were all calculated, purposeful, intended to both get answers out of him and make him feel at ease. If he were a regular child, it would have worked.

 _Well_. It was working. But he wouldn’t have been _aware_ of it, if he were a regular child. Koharu encouraged him to hand her the cloth bags so she could put the fruits away in a basket on a high shelf. She didn’t press him for answers, knowing well enough that he would talk or he wouldn’t.

Eventually, when the groceries were all put away and the events of the day caught up to him and sent exhaustion snapping at his heels, he did.

“I’m new to Suna. I… walked here.”

Not necessarily a lie, and like any teacher she could sense as much.

“Oh, from one of the other oases?”

Shinki shook his head.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” And then, after a moment of silence, “I’m sorry.”

Koharu shook her head. Her dusty brown hair, tied into a low bun—the scarf now around her neck, unneeded as a shield against the sun now—shook slightly.

“That’s quite alright, Shinki.” She started walking again. Without any other cues as to what he should do, Shinki trotted along at her side. “You look tired. You’ll have to share a room, but it’s much roomier than how it used to be!”

She laughed, light and airy, and Shinki laughed too—a bubble of noise in the back of his throat. He shouldn’t feel so at ease here. The Iron Sand followed after him in a cloud and he was glad that most of the other children were either asleep, outside, or still in academy classes. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with _them_.

She showed him to a bunk bed near one of the circular windows, told him he’d take the top. Shinki nodded mutely. She showed him to a cubby, where he could put his pack. He obediently did so. She paused and then pointed to another cubby.

“For your sand.”

He almost laughed. They both smiled, weary but amused at the sheer novelty of the situation. Shinki directed the sand into the cubby. It didn’t all fit. They laughed again. The oddly light feeling seized him from the inside, bubbling up and coming out only as laughter.

“I guess we’ll have to get you a box or something for all that!” Koharu finally said, wiping at her face. Shinki noticed with alarm and amazement that the whole predicament actually was making her cry laughing. He briefly wondered is he should be offended—but she was laughing at the situation, not at him, and it _was_ pretty funny. He wiped at his own eyes as she swept from the room to fetch him a box. In the meantime, Shinki clambered up into his bunk and sat, cross-legged and waiting for Koharu to return. The bed was small, but soft. The sheets were clean. It smelled like soap and sand. Shinki found it inordinately pleasant. His hands kneaded in the thread of the sheet idly. Instead of the cubby, he piled his sand neatly (kind of) in the far corner, next to the bunk bed placed directly across from his.

Koharu returned with a box nearly as large as she was, and taller. She had to lay it on its side and push it through the threshold. She set it up next to the pile and then turned to Shinki.

“Shinki, would you mind picking that up? That’s a good spot for it!”

Obediently, he lofted the sand into the air and watched as Koharu pushed the box against the wall.

“Now, you’re in charge of it, so I trust you to use it responsibly. That goes for your bed, your cubby, and your clothes.” She brushed her hands down her front as if there were sand caught on them. Somehow, Shinki didn’t doubt it.

“I understand.”

“I doubt you’ll be here long,” she said, as if she’d been meaning to say as much for a long time. “I think I know someone who’d like very much to meet you. In the meantime, try to get some sleep! If you’re here for much longer, I’ll introduce you to the others.”

He nodded. She smiled back at him, and now he could see the lines of fatigue in her face too. He didn’t quite know what to think about that.

“Thank you, Koharu.”  

She nodded, briefly, sparing one more look to the box, to his cubby, to him, before leaving. Shinki laid on his back and stared at the ceiling, intending to think about his day and what he would do next, but sleep took him before he could do anything of the sort.

He woke to Koharu gently patting him on the cheek. It took more self-control than he ever thought he could have to keep himself from spearing her through with his sand; it rumbled ominously in the box, but he passed it off as lofting it into the air.

“You must have been tired. It’s the morning already!”

Her peppy attitude this early in the morning was not appreciated, and Shinki made that known by staring her down.

He felt bad immediately after, and so cursed _childish wiles_ in the back of his mind before returning the smile and clambering down the ladder. Koharu stepped back to allow him that.

“Breakfast will have to wait. Someone’s here to talk to you.”

That sounded urgent, and also not necessarily _good_.

“Understood,” Shinki mumbled, halfway under his breath. He pulled the Iron Sand into a cloak again, disregarding the childishness of the action. Koharu turned from him and left for the front room; he followed, the sand whispering against the floor.

He didn’t know what he expected.

Not the Kazekage.

He still saw him as a child, wrung out of hate and anger but still carrying a tempest; he recognized the struggle in his eyes. The fact that Gaara was now older than him stuck unpleasantly in his thoughts.  In front of him, Koharu exchanged pleasantries and then turned back, gesturing at Shinki from where he was standing in the threshold. The Iron Sand billowed out, as if making himself look larger might help, and Shinki quickly smoothed the cloak down around himself.

The conversation passed much too quickly, and in a haze. Shinki couldn’t remember what he’d said. He remembered Gaara talking to him, though not the words. He remembered Koharu’s well-wishes and cheery goodbye. 

It was then Shinki realized that the excitement was nearly too much, and was grateful when the day came to a close.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinki navigates family, friends, and the Academy.

Shinki had some troubles adjusting to life at the Kazekage’s tower. He noticed the ANBU discreetly stationed around the tower. It was hard not to nod at them, or search them out, because a child his age most definitely should not be capable of that, especially when they were entirely hidden—chakra masked and all.

Gaara introduced him to his new aunt and uncle, which Shinki internally rankled at. Kankurō, who seemed much more delighted than Shinki did to meet him, and Temari, who Shinki immediately gained an entirely justified terror of. Gaara may have been Kazekage and Temari might live alternately in Konoha and Suna, but the clout she held in the council and with her brothers—and Shinki, now, too—could not afford to be disregarded.

He eventually decided that Gaara was nice, if stilted. Kankurō was nice enough, a fact which Shinki hated him for. Temari was also nice, though she seemed much less permissive than her brothers.

Gaara tried to eat dinner with him once. They discovered that they both preferred to eat quickly, quietly, and to return to their respective activities. It wasn’t unpleasant; Shinki started to keep his adoptive father company during mealtimes, because of that and also because it was expected. Kankurō dropped by occasionally.

Shinki asked him about puppets, once, to which Kankurō lightly advised him to ask an Academy teacher first, and then he would teach him ‘super cool ninja tricks’. Shinki nearly wanted to decapitate him.

Shinki started at the Academy a week later, and he did in fact ask an Academy teacher, who advised him to wait.

Shinki nearly wanted to scream.

Instead, he politely petitioned Kankurō to allow him into his workshop, which started with a “well, you’re a little young,” and ended with a “oh, why not. Just don’t get hurt.”

(It wasn’t very hard.)

Once he was given free rein of the workshop it felt as if a small part of him, long-forgotten but not at all dulled, came roaring back to the surface of his identity. The first night he was up nearly until it was time to go to the Academy, constructing a purposefully clumsy puppet out of parts left lying around the workshop. For as creative, skilled, and diligent as most puppeteers were, they were neither organized nor motivated to be so. Shinki enjoyed the mess; digging through the piles quieted his head and made it easier to enter a streamlined workflow. Not as good as the ones he’d enjoyed as a puppet, of course, when thoughts and emotions could be put aside as easily as moving, but he harnessed the emotions and thoughts as constructively as a child could.

When he was finished, he paraded his puppet around the workbench to make sure it walked in a way that was almost, but not quite right, that it stood too stiffly, that it stepped too heavily. He scraped away years worth of polish to create for himself, for the class he’d show it to, a performance.

He painted the puppet into a facsimile of himself, practiced moving the arms and his sand at the same time, and soon enough he could make the puppet of himself appear to almost pilot the sand.

Ten minutes later, Kankurō burst into the workshop with a snack for him, briefly scolded him for spending all night in the workshop (though he sounded distinctly proud), and shooed him off to school.

He made a surprising amount of friends with the puppet. It was easier than talking, really, and his favorite moment of his first day was realizing he’d forgotten a pencil at home—piloting his tiny puppet over onto the desk of a classmate, forming the sand into a request for a pencil.

His request was granted. He’d also made a friend, who tagged along with him at recess and badgered him to show her more tricks with the puppet.

Shinki hadn’t given a performance that hadn’t ended in death in ages. He tried to play along, told her his name and everything to allow her to announce him to the small audience he’d garnered, and by the end of the day was invited to no less than three playdates.

The entire time, he’d said only a handful of words. He considered that a success.

The first year of the Academy he despised being treated like a child and constantly had to remind himself that he was, in fact, a child. He established himself as the top student, which he would have been exceedingly disappointed in himself if he was not.

In his second year at the Academy, his best friend (she was not his best friend. She had declared him as such and Shinki had no motivation to dissuade that notion—she shared her food with him.) offered to pay him in pastry from her family’s bakery to make a puppet of her older sister, who was moving to another Hidden Village as an ambassador. Shinki took her up on it, of course, and as he stayed up for an entire night he meditated on the revelation that he didn’t actually know her name.

Her name was Hikari. Her sister’s name was Hibiki. Shinki noticed a pattern, but kept it to himself and made the puppet. Before, when he made hair, he’d used real hair from people, horses, occasionally ninken when they could be so convinced. This time, he used dark brown thread and tried to mimic Hibiki’s hairstyle. He held it in place with yellow thread and glue, and was rather proud of the end result.

Hikari hugged him, which he could have done without. He was, however, very pleased with his payment, which he took home immediately and hid.

He bribed Kankurō into buying him some special materials with a pastry. He didn’t bribe Temari for anything, because that was impossible, but he did give her some. He left one for Gaara in his study before going to class, because admitting that he’d purposefully kept them all for himself at dinner was something he very much wanted to do without. He could always get more, if he wanted, so it was no small loss.

Shinki tried to convince himself that _that_ was the only reason, and not because he’d sorely missed what if felt like to be a part of a family. It couldn’t make up for his first childhood, torn from him; and here he was, doing the job of tearing this one all by himself.

It was easy to fix puppets. Harder to fix people. Shinki tried not to dwell on it too much. He engaged in a conversation with Hikari and the others during recess.

No. He _talked_ with them.

In his third year at the Academy, the class finally learned more about the art of puppeteering than what they could glean from books their parents allowed them, and Shinki received a new audience. It was with childish glee (by now he’d stopped cursing childish wiles, and instead forced himself to embrace them, both to further his cover and to reclaim small bits of what it felt like to be young) that he showed them. Hikari was turning eight; due to the fact that she was his best friend, Shinki decided to make her a puppet like he’d made for her sister, and wasn’t even going to demand payment, though if she decided to share some of the special pastry she always brought in for her friend’s and her own birthdays he wouldn’t argue.

Kankurō teased him about a crush. Shinki acted as if he would command the Iron Sand to crush Kuroari. Kankurō didn’t tease him about crushes after that, but Gaara had a talk with him about using the sand only to protect later that night, and though he didn’t direct Shinki to apologize to his uncle Shinki knew it was expected of him.

Hikari hugged him when he gave her the puppet. He could have gone without, but it was pleasant, and she did end up splitting the pastry with him. He rationalized the gift to himself as something thoughtful, individual, and only for her based on how long she had put up with him.

Halfway through his first year at the Academy he’d started doing his homework in the Kazekage’s office, ostensibly because he didn’t want his adoptive father to be holed up all alone with nobody but stuffy ambassadors and councilmembers for company. It was with dismay that he discovered that he actually enjoyed it. Gaara also took the opportunity to teach him about how to use his sand; since it was much more complex than controlling it through the puppet, Shinki took advantage of the lessons.

Years ago he would only respect Gaara as a powerful opponent. Now, while he doubted he could ever truly see Gaara as a father, he couldn’t muster _contempt_ anymore. He was grateful, of course, for having a place to live, and people to take care of him (and to take care of). He was grateful for the workshop, and his friends at the academy, and over time accepted that it was alright to be a child. He’d grow up eventually. He respected Kankurō, of course, even though he could be insufferable sometimes. He respected and feared Temari in equal measure. He was even getting used to the ANBU, thought he could never ignore them, and could never do more than pretend not to notice. He was doing them a favor; if there was an attack, and he _doubted_ it, he wouldn’t give them away.

_Family._ Like his name, years ago against the sandstone, it felt strange on his tongue. Shinki knew well enough now to understand that it would fit soon enough.

Shinki allowed himself to slowly reveal his true talents at puppetry. Kankurō took an interest, of course, and it was with a muted pleasure Shinki discovered his puppet body tucked away in a scroll.

As hard as it was—as much as it hurt—he didn’t ask. It wasn’t a story he needed to be told, not one he wanted to be reminded about, and the less links he set up to who he used to be the better. It was already risky business to indulge in skills far beyond his apparent age.

Then and again, only a prodigy would survive the trek he’d made two years ago.

Two nights before his ninth birthday, he was in the corner of Kankurō’s workshop sanding down a cube of wood into a sphere for a puppet’s head. A dog. A shinobi with ninken had come through Suna the previous week, and currently his grade in the Academy couldn’t stop talking about it, _so_. Shinki decided to play along. Make something new. Impress Hikari and the rest of his classmates, the teacher.

That, and he’d finally been working up the courage, finding the right time, to ask Kankurō a question. When Kankurō set down a chisel, yawned, reached for his tea, Shinki struck.

“Kankurō?”

Halfway into putting the teacup down, Kankurō froze. It was rare enough for Shinki to talk; rarer to talk to him. He set the cup down and straightened up, settling his legs comfortably back into a cross.

“What is it, Shinki?”

Shinki looked back down to the snout and ears taking gradual form. He didn’t intend to keep Kankurō waiting, had waited too long himself for this, had rehearsed, but that was a very unchildlike thing to do and so he created artificial hesitation for himself. A performance; something he’d always been good at.

“I was wondering when I would be able to paint my face like the rest of the puppeteers.”

Kankurō hummed. His hand smoothed down the face of a puppet, jaw mangled and half its face charred; in the process of being fixed. Shinki didn’t like fixing puppets as much as making them, but maintenance was inevitable when art was used for combat.

“Like you,” Shinki continued, on the off chance it would soften Kankurō up a bit.

“Well, normally you’d have to be at least a Genin to join the Puppet Corps.”

Kankurō must have sensed the souring of Shinki’s chakra, even as quickly as he forced it back to neutral. He was a child, yes, but not a _petulant_ one.

“You could always paint your face. Some other Academy kids do,” he offered.

“If I pass all the tests required to join the Corps?” Shinki sanded an ear into a point. Kankurō made a strange sort of vocalization, halfway between a groan and a whine, that meant he wanted to say yes but knew that the answer surely couldn’t be that simple.

“You won’t be able to participate in the Corps until you pass your Academy exam and become a Genin, and you won’t be able to go on missions with your favorite uncle until you’re at _least_ a Chūnin. That’s why you want to join the Corps, isn’t it?”

Kankurō grinned. Despite himself, Shinki smiled in return.

“You’re my only uncle.”

“Exactly.”

Kankurō turned back to the puppet. Shinki entertained himself with trying to figure out how to hinge a canine jaw. No hidden weapons, sadly; they would only be confiscated, as he’d learned. Ten minutes passed and then Kankurō clicked his tongue against his teeth, Shinki’s attention handily grabbed.

“If you pass all the tests. Wait until the Academy goes on break, and you can train with me until then to make sure you have a good chance.”

The first part Shinki expected. The second part was more than he could have hoped for, and he didn’t doubt that it showed.

“Thank you.”

Kankurō waved his hand, not dismissive but signifying that the thanks was all he needed. “It’s quite alright. I’m pretty sure your father would have words for me if I didn’t prepare you adequately.” He huffed a laugh. Despite himself, so did Shinki.

So Kankurō trained him, and for his birthday got him a tin of red greasepaint with the promise that he’d keep thinking up designs for now and save putting it on for later. Shinki agreed graciously to the terms.

Shortly after his tenth birthday, his class took a field trip to the dunes and deep canyon closest to Sunagakure. By now, Shinki had added to his small group of friends; Hikari, of course, but also Ayumu; who’d gone blind in a sandstorm when he was a child and used chakra to feel out the edges of his world. Itsuki, who planned to join the Puppet Corps once he passed the Chūnin Exam. Chiyoko, who reminded him so much of his grandmother that it caused his heart to ache sometimes. Shinki wasn’t going to search out the past. He allowed it to stay there and satisfied himself with his childish new compatriots.

Two hours into the trek, their Chūnin instructor called for a water break and directed them to a blasted-out cave in the side of the canyon. She had them go through their packs, making sure their water was still enough to last the entire day, and that their ropes and carabiners were placed close to the top of the pack in the event of an emergency. Shinki, Hikari, and Itsuki practiced chakra control in this canyon; clambering up the sheer sides, Shinki watching with his sand in the event one of them toppled. The gate guards knew, because Shinki was now partially convinced that the gate guards were no longer mere shinobi but had risen above in some fashion and gained partial omnipotence as to the comings and goings of Suna’s children, but they only watched; never interfered. Shinki was glad enough for that.

Hikari yawned and laid back against the cool sandstone, arms tucked up behind her head. Itsuki sat in a neat cross-legged position and talked with Ayumu. While he’d mastered low-level chakra emissions to mold a mental map, he still had limits, and if he ran out it would be an unpleasant trip back for him. Chiyoko amused Hikari with an origami frog that leapt up whenever Chiyoko pressed the tail. The rest of the class chattered happily and the Chūnin chaperones traced out the paths in the air.

Ten minutes later they were called to continue. The route out of the canyon was a thin path carved into the sandstone, sloping up at a moderate incline.  Shinki had to keep his sand cloak closer to him so one of his classmates didn’t tread on it. While it might have been funny, he didn’t want it to happen. Hikari would never let him hear the end of it, and if it was Itsuki behind him he’d probably end up pushed into the person ahead of him, and it would be truly unfortunate if he lashed out mindlessly and hurt someone with it.

The class’ quiet chatter and scuffling of feet was broken, and suddenly, snapping into silent fear when a shriek sounded from behind Shinki.

It would take three seconds for him—Ayamu, Shinki knew, from both his voice and his guess that he’d run out of chakra—to hit the bottom. He’d break every bone in his body, if not crack his head open, and he’d most definitely die. If not on impact, then from the trauma of it. Shinki had seen it happen; the desert was not an ideal place to fight, the mouths of voracious canyons even less so. Ayamu would die, and if he died, that was something he could not fix.

He wasn’t about to let that happen. The cloak peeled away from him and he twisted to watch it, sent it careening into Ayamu and arresting his fall a handful of feet from the bottom of the canyon. The entire action couldn’t have taken more than two seconds, but it seemed stretched, like Shinki could see each grain moving in slow motion to scoop Ayamu out of the air. His gloved hands swiped at the sand as if to pull it closer, harsh and gasping breaths brought up to their ledge by the funneling of the canyon.

“Ayamu!” That was one of the Chūnin teachers, upset but not panicked, and Shinki was glad to know that he was the reason. “Are you alright?”

More gasping, even though he nodded. He was trembling. Shinki looked down at his hands—trembling, too. He thought he might not have made it, for a split second, and even though he knew it was a foolish doubt the fact that he’d had it at all was troubling. The fact that losing one of his classmates—teammates, they were considered for this field trip—bothered him was even _more_ troubling.

“I’ll bring him up,” he said, own voice sounding distant and small. He wanted to sound confident; he didn’t. He just sounded relieved.

He placed Ayamu at the top and when Shinki and his other close friends reached it, they ran to him with little care for the Chūnin chaperones calling them back. Shinki pulled the cloak around himself, and was then pulled into a hug, and didn’t quite know what to think of that. It had only ever been Hikari before. Ayamu thanked him while they were still in the claustrophobic huddle; Shinki could only mumble out that it wasn’t a problem. The rest of the class made their way over at a more leisurely pace.

The Chūnin teachers checked Ayamu for injury, congratulated Shinki for his quick reaction, and then it wasn’t mentioned again for the rest of the field trip.

On their way back, they passed a dead ibex halfway submerged in a dune; buried, crushed during a sandstorm, most likely. It had been dead for a while, the skull stripped down and well on its way to bleaching. As the class took a break nearby, Shinki pulled it apart as well as possible and stowed it in his pack, right above the water. Judging by the size it couldn’t have been very old at all, but Shinki figured it would be better to repurpose it than to let it sit out in the wastes.

The rest of the field trip passed without further complication and when Shinki went home, he had just enough energy to finish his homework.

He didn’t fall asleep in his room, but he woke up there. That meant he’d fallen asleep and someone had taken him, which was objectively horrifying—both that people thought they could just manhandle him, and especially that he hadn’t woken up during the process. He resolved to not make it a habit.

He had to wait for a school holiday to start working properly on his newest idea for a puppet. In the meantime, he studied. He set the skull out to bleach in the sun. He watched for sandstorms, and played with puppets during recess with his friends. Ayamu joined them in walking on the canyon walls, and it became a game of trying to knock each other off, to which Shinki became increasingly grateful for his Iron Sand.

It _was_ being used to protect, he supposed, though he suspected Gaara wouldn’t approve of this particular application of it. It was good that he harbored absolutely no desire to tell Gaara exactly what he was doing in the long evenings after the Academy; Shinki also suspected that his adoptive father was more glad that he had friends than concerned with what he was doing with them. It worked out. Shinki saw no need to disturb the comfortable status quo that he’d constructed.

Shinki didn’t get to work on his newest puppet until the Academy took a break. With two short years remaining until he graduated to Genin and joined a team, he considered it imperative that he finish construction on the puppet and thoroughly know how to control it, and then perhaps append weapons or secret compartments…

Rather than get ahead of himself, he went out to gather bones. Kankurō graciously accompanied him (though Shinki suspected he was interested, as well, and bored to death of his current post). The areas of the puppet that absolutely could not be bone he set in a stain to approximate the color and texture. It took him a month to gather all the materials; even longer when he finally started on construction. His principal action was to carve sturdy wood into the suggestion of a skull and hew the horns from the ibex. He affixed them to the skull after it had been stained, thoroughly dried, and lacquered. The skull went in the place of honor in a box under the workbench, next to the large box where his sand rested. He wasn’t permitted to wear it as a cloak in the workshop, due to Kankurō’s understandable worries about Iron Sand in delicate hinges and joints-- however grumpily Shinki complied with the initial demand, he had to agree, and enough years had passed that he found it a habit rather than an imposition.

When the puppet was nearly finished Shinki struck upon a familiar quandary; that was, what to name the puppet. Something whimsical might befit a child, but Shinki had proven himself above whimsy (or at the very least adjacent to it). Naming it after one of his old puppets would not only be foolish, but soppy. His new signature took the form of a geometric skull. It wasn’t a scorpion; it would have to do. Shinki was proud of it nonetheless.

He was not proud when ink spilled from his hand onto the skull. It splattered the left side irreparably.

A calmer man would have painted over it, or perhaps disassembled the puppet for another round of bleaching. Shinki, caught in the throes of pre-teen melodrama, took the ink and spread it throughout the entire left side, and didn’t find himself regretting it one bit. It would bleach; if it didn’t, he could always attempt to recreate this puppet. He mildly regretted not creating a prototype.

Without much else by way of reflection he hauled his puppet up, manhandling it to feel the smoothness of the wood, the porousness of bone. The sharp tips of the horns, sanded smooth.

Rather uncreatively, he named his creation Ramuhōn. It would have to do.

 


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinki meets his team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four weeks. Sorry. Thanks everyone who stuck around, read, reviewed, kudoed! It means the world to me!

Ramuhōn quickly gained the approval and admiration of his classmates, thought Kankurō was understandably put off that a vast majority of the puppet was bone. Shinki proudly explained the design to him in the hopes that he would like it more; later, he wondered why Kankurō’s approval meant so much to him.

Gaara had him explain the mechanisms, which was his foster father’s way of showing interest. Shinki took it as what it was. Temari didn’t offer comment, though Shinki supposed she would approve of the bold design.

The Chūnin instructors told him in no uncertain terms that it could join his Iron Sand in his cubby. He responded, as eloquently and respectfully as possible, that he only wanted to bring it in one day to show his classmates, but he came out of it suspicious that they weren’t scared of it, merely wanting to keep the class in order.

Teachers, Shinki had decided to himself long ago and only re-confirmed with each passing incident, were scared of nothing. He’d seen them face down tantrums, and seen them defuse tantrums, and at some point even threaten to make him put his Iron Sand away if he could not keep fidgeting with it. They suspected him of using it to cheat!

He’d considered it, but also considered himself plenty smart enough to succeed without the crutch of cheating.

His remaining year of the Academy passed without incident. He passed the exam with flying colors; so did his friend group, though he actually found himself studying with Ayamu to make sure he passed. Hikari did nothing but study and didn’t even talk to him. Shinki tried not to be put off by that; but not having her attention was unfamiliar, and it rankled. Itsuki and Chiyoko studied together, which had caused them to be teased for liking each other in their earlier years at the Academy, but considering that they very much did like each other Shinki suspected that neither of them cared.

It was with a bittersweet sadness he realized he wouldn’t be in a team with his friends. He knew it would happen; he wasn’t stupid. Gaara took him aside and told him that he would have his own team that recently lost a member.

“You will not only be their teammate, but a strong pillar for them to rally around. Help them to recover the same way my friends helped me to recover, and you’ll become all the more stronger for it.”

That was what he said and what Shinki carried with him. From the description he expected morose and vapid Genin, either broken with despair or consumed by anger; he did not. He met Yodo, whose chakra signature nearly overwhelmed all of them, who shook his hand and smiled. She had earbuds in. When he turned to introduce himself to his second teammate, she went back to bopping her head to a beat only she could hear. He met Araya, who was perfectly polite and quiet, face hidden behind a ghastly mask. Shinki thought of Ramuhōn.

When he more thoroughly took in his new teammate’s appearances, he noticed that Yodo’s unzipped jacket revealed a gap in her long-sleeved shirt. He almost didn’t comment on it—it wasn’t his issue, and besides, it would be inappropriate of him—but curiosity and a blunt nature won out.

“Isn’t it hot?”

She looked up at him. She pulled one earbud out and then laid it over her ear. “What?”

“Isn’t it hot?” he repeated, eyes skimming down the long sleeves, the open chest.

She shrugged. “Only during the day.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. Shinki could appreciate that. Clearly, neither of them felt the need to coddle him, either from his new status or his apparent past. It was with a certain amount of distance; he hoped that one day they would view him as more than a replacement for a lost comrade.

“Won’t it distract people?” That’s rather grasping at straws, but he knew people like Orochimaru who would look twice (or more) at her—and not just because of the astronomical potency and amount of her chakra. A sharp twist of disgust sparked to life in his belly, one that hadn’t when he was a puppet. He liked disgust better when it was purely cerebral. This pulse of hatred made him feel closer to her, if not protective, and that settled uncomfortably with him.

“My enemies?” She tilted her head, blonde hair flopping to the side and over her shoulder. Sand clung to the strands.

“I suppose.”

Yodo smiled again. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, but somehow Shinki liked it better; sharp, predatory. “Then that will be the last mistake they ever make.”

“Ah,” Shinki responded politely, and decided that he never ever wanted to cross Yodo. Why were blondes always so—explosive? Temari, his old partner, now Yodo. Perhaps he should make an experiment of it. Araya brought a hand to his mask, as if to hide a smile. Shinki figured that he deserved it for asking such a question.

They trained together for three weeks as Shinki learned how to best synergize their fighting styles. It did not come easily. Araya favored his sword, but quickly enough learned how to signal for Shinki to send a tongue of sand over to him so he could leap off of it and deliver a cleaving overhand to one of the dummies. He did the same off of Yodo’s back. Sometimes, they turned as if to welcome a third into the maneuver; Shinki, after two weeks, asked them to teach him the third part.

The obliged. Shinki still felt like an outsider except when he was in the thick of it.

Yodo’s style leaned away from finesse. In fact, it stomped on finesse and then threw it out the window. Yodo relied entirely on the sweeping power of her chakra, and could even use chakra to enhance her blows. Shinki grew to appreciate the both of them as strong and disciplined teammates. They included him to the bare minimum. He trusted that in time it would grow.

They went on their first C-Rank mission to guard a caravan traveling through bandit territory. Shinki hadn’t missed C-Ranks. This one only reminded him why. Araya and Yodo always made him walk in front, Yodo silent and listening music, Araya silent and scanning the horizon, Shinki likewise silent and feeling out the ripples of their chakra. Hearing the rumble of wagon wheels. Their Jonin-sensei up front with the caravan leader, a tall former Chūnin with half her face missing. Just pink and red and gray scars, bandages covering her eye. Shinki remembered the way Kankurō talked to her briefly before the caravan left, the bright aspen of her fingers flicking out a farewell. A ninken panted at her knees, a sturdy-looking brown and black dog with cropped ears and a docked tail.

Shinki remembered Komushi, and then tried his hardest not to look at the caravan leader again.

The caravan passed without incident and Shinki used his earnings to buy explosive tags. Araya bought him a new tin of face paint and a belt for himself. Yodo bought a speaker and proceeded to play Kiri hard metal while they trained.

It was a fact of life that every Genin team will have a C-Rank that turns into an A-Rank. Shinki knew this. He did not want to see what sort of disaster would turn their next mission into a catastrophe, and doubted they’d have a former member of the Puppet Corps there either.

It wasn’t their team. It was a team composed of Araya’s father and both of Yodo’s parents. Araya’s mother already died, the same sandstorm that blinded Ayamu. Shinki found out when Yodo stormed onto the training field, earbuds off and stuffed into her pocket, Araya trotting after her. His head was down. Hers wasn’t, but her eyes were bright with unshed tears and Shinki didn’t know why.

“We’re all orphans now,” she said, sharp and upset, and Shinki found himself regretting that a shinobi’s life should always be so full of death. She struck quickly, like a snake half-buried in sand, words just words but still carrying the harsh edge of venom.

“But Gaara—”

She snorted. “Oh, please. Don’t tell me he’s not too busy being Kazekage to pay attention to you.”

_Well, sometimes,_ Shinki thought, but that didn’t mean it bothered him.

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

Shinki was familiar enough by now of Yodo’s tendency to guard her own wounds by pouncing on others. It was just his luck she’d overshot this one, and it didn’t bother him, and that he was willing to let her ignore her pain for now.

“That’s why you’re so _good_ at everything. You want him to pay _attention_ to you,” she continued, tone acid and leering. “You hope that if you do really good, he’ll be proud of you.” She stomped. Shinki felt the ground quake. “But he won’t. You know it. He’s the strongest shinobi in the village.”

Tears, glazing her eyes. She blinked to chase them away. Shinki stayed quiet.

“I bet he only adopted you because you have his family’s kekkei genkai!”

True, perhaps. Shinki quelled the growing unhappiness at her words by assuring himself he knew his new family much better than she did.

“It’s stupid! This is stupid!” Araya put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off and fixed her glare on Shinki, still heated. Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes. “ _You’re_ stupid! I didn’t ask to have you on my team!”

“And I didn’t ask to replace your teammate. I didn’t ask to be adopted. And I’m _not_ responsible for your pain,” Shinki snapped. Yodo snarled, teeth bared, and Araya grabbed her elbow before she could raise a fist. “But like it or not, we are teammates now, and I don’t want you to hate me.”

“You’re right.” She dropped her head, looking more like a bull about to charge than despondent or resigned. “I just--”

Araya took a step back from the both of them as if he sensed an incoming fight. He got involved sometimes, yes, but never often enough to make a habit of it or make them think he’d choose their side in particular. Shinki glanced sidelong to make sure he wouldn’t run for their Jonin-sensei. He didn’t. He settled back onto his heels and crossed his arms. Yodo crossed her arms, too.

“I can’t promise anything. I can only…”

“I don’t want your promises,” Yodo cut him off. Her voice chilled from hot fury to a colder brand of resolve. Shinki’s worry eased off at the slight assurance that he’d get out of this one unscathed. Her chakra still roiled and tears trailed down her cheeks, but the red-hot anger faded just as quickly as he’d seen it rise. “I just… I just want my parents back.”

Shinki’s breath caught. His hands curled into fists. He felt his nails against his palm. He thought of Ramuhōn, of Red and Blue in the dunes far off. He thought of his old body coiled up in a scroll. He thought of his old puppets.

It was a pity that it took so much death to draw them together. He took a step toward her, uncurling one fist and offering it instead in front of him. Araya’s head tilted; hers looked up. Shinki sought out her eyes and took another step until they were the closest they’ve ever stood besides training and shaking each other’s hands on the first day. Yodo’s eyes tracked his hand.

He came to a stop a few feet away from her. Araya came to join them with his arms still crossed, keenly focused on the next actions his teammates would make.

Yodo sighed. She let her arms drop to her sides as if the stress of hatred was worse than the stress of pain; chakra still upset, but now burnt down to coals. She reached out to meet Shinki’s hand. He squeezed, the motion of comfort still uncomfortable but now necessary.

“I do too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love kudos and comments! Tell me your thoughts!


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